Joel’s Truth and Reconciliation Blog Post

Hello there! Welcome to my Truth and Reconciliation blog post. You might be wondering, “What is Reconciliation?” well you’ll find out! Reconciliation means coming back to a broken relationship, and mending it. What we do during Truth and Reconciliation Week is we remember what had happened until 1996, when many Indigenous children had suffered going to Indian Residential Schools.

 

When Indigenous children went to Residential Schools, they had to wear the same uniform, not speak their language, and be like everyone else. The goal of these Residential Schools is to make the children speak only English, and make them forget their culture. Children were able to see their parents only two times a year, and by that time, they would have forgotten their culture. If anyone tried to escape the Residential Schools, they would have been seriously tortured, and have their heads shaved.

 

One time, a boy named Chanie Wenjack, Born in 1954, and died in 1966, grew up in Ogori Post, and at age 9, had been sent to a Residential School. The school was in Kenora, 600 kilometers away from his home. Then, at the age of twelve, escaped from the school to go back home, but died trying. Many years later, a famous singer, Gordie Dowe, had made a song about Chanie Wenjack called the secret path, and to this day, we remember them both.

 

When the Residential Schools were going on, they did not care about how the children felt, they only cared about converting the children to Canadian Culture. But fortunately, in 1996, the Government and Prime Minister apologized to all the people that had suffered during those decades. You can also help many indigenous people by donating money to the Chanie Wenjack & Gordie Dowe foundation and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada!

 

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post about Truth and Reconciliation! I want to talk about something next time!

Bye!!

 

Bibliography

 

The Canadian Encyclopedia. “Chanie Wenjack.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, Georgia Carley, 7 April 2016, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/charlie-wenjack. Accessed 6 October 2021.

 

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